Monday, May 20, 2013

What happens in Vegas ....

Highly intelligent people sometimes do astonishingly dumb things, particularly if there is alcohol involved and in extreme cases such as this one, the net result is a bright future never to be realised.

Minutes before midnight on the eve of the millennium, a Stanford graduate climbed to the top of a street light in front of the Paris Las Vegas Hotel in Nevada, and waved to the enthusiastic revellers below. At midnight he slipped and in an effort to break his fall, grabbed the wires that were supplying the electricity to the street light. Suddenly he was conducting more than just the cheering crowd. A camera caught his foolhardy climb and subsequent plunge to the concrete below. Whether he died from electrocution or from the 30-foot fall is unknown, either way, he never got to enjoy his pending wealth.

The young graduate was at the time working at a Silicon Valley start-up company scheduled to go public in the summer. He stood to make a substantial profit with his options, until they were voided by his untimely death.

Evidently, a sterling academic pedigree is no guarantee of common sense.